NEW: H&J 2022/23 dates released

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After growing success and positive feedback from current and previous delegates, Integritas’ ‘Health and Justice’ track is back for another year.

Dates have now been confirmed and applications will open soon. Will you be part of the next delegation?

September 9th-10th 2022 conference

Oct. 4th 2022 webinar

Nov. 1st 2022 webinar

Jan. 13th-14th 2023 conference

Feb. 7th 2022 - webinar

March 7th 2023 webinar

April 28th-29th conference (CMF national conference is 21-23rd)

May 9th 2023 webinar

June 6th 2023 webinar

July 7th-8th 2023 conference

Concern Raised For New Immigration Detention Centre

A new immigration detention centre (IDC) for women is planned to open at the former Secure Training Centre, in Medomsley, County Durham later this year. In her position as co-chair of the Forensic and Secure Environments Committee of the British Medical Association (BMA), our Medical Director, Dr Rachael Pickering, was one of hundreds of signatories to a letter sent to the Home Secretary yesterday detailing concerns about this IDC.

Coordinated by Women for Refugee Women with other campaign groups, this letter outlines concerns that this new detention centre would pose serious mental health risks to the women it would detain. It has been found that just under half of women in another IDC have self-harmed, and many of these women were already survivors of torture, rape and trafficking, with their detention only adding to the trauma they had previously experienced.

These women arrive in this country extremely vulnerable, often claiming they have had to flee persecution in their country of origin. Whether this claim is true is for the government to decide, but does this necessitate locking them up and treating them as criminals?

There are other ways to monitor and track these women in the community as they apply for asylum, so what is the point of this facility? How will it benefit their care? Why don’t we take this opportunity to extend compassion to them rather than imprisoning them?

For media enquiries, please phone our Medical Director or email our European office.

There's a new boss in town!

After a long and difficult search for the right person, we are pleased to announce that Dr Lavinia Miries has just been appointed as our first ever Chief Operations Officer.

Already a valued member of our team, medically qualified Lavinia is stepping upwards and sideways. She joins Integridad Operations Officer Mrs Loy Napalan and Chief Medical Officer Dr Rachael Pickering. This all-female trio make up our newly formed senior management team.

Both Mam Loy and Rachael are absolutely thrilled at the prospect of working with Lavinia who will take up her new duties gradually from the end of April.

If not now, then when?

Following his inauguration last week, President Biden has not wasted time in signing a number of executive orders. Two days ago, this included ordering the Department for Justice to end contracts with private prisons.

This order could be seen as a step forward to ensure more humane settings of detention. It may also be a move towards racial equity. But others see this as a purely political statement that does not solve the myriad underlying problems within American’s criminal justice system. For example, it does not benefit immigration detention centres; there is no news as to when action might be taken to improve their conditions.

We continue to hope that the new administration will act on capital punishment. As of yet though, no post-inauguration mention has been made of ending the execution of prisoners who may have committed their crimes whilst seriously mentally unwell. Mr President, we urge you to consider the mental, emotional and lethal consequences of putting off this decision.

For media enquiries, please phone our Medical Director or email our European office.

Integritas calls for new POTUS to act on capital punishment

Today the world has its eyes on Washington DC. We wait to see what might happen during and after President-elect Biden's inauguration. And we wonder which executive orders the new POTUS (President Of The United States) will sign as he eases himself into his Oval Office chair.

Particular things that Integritas Healthcare, the medical non-government organisation with a heart for detainees, wants to know are...

Will President Biden act decisively to end his nation's record of executing prisoners who may have committed their crimes whilst seriously mentally unwell? And will he move to end the decades of solitary confinement, which could be said to amount to psychological and environmental torture, endured habitually by many death row prisoners?

We wait with expectation. But regardless of whether President Biden acts on this matter soon, within the next few months or never, the international appetite for change grows ever stronger.

Please Mr President, such actions would be the start of a much needed improvement in the treatment of detainees on your country's soil. We hope for the day when leaders of smaller nations set on improving their human rights records are able to look up to the United States of America and pledge to emulate your statesmanship in this matter.

For media enquiries, please phone our Medical Director or email our European office.

Integritas responds to the execution of Lisa Montgomery

Further to our recent campaigning, we were saddened though not surprised to hear that Lisa Montgomery was executed this morning after her last-minute stay of execution was overturned by the United States of America’s Supreme Court. Our thoughts and prayers are with her victim’s family, with Lisa’s own family, and with all those who have been involved professionally in her case.

Whether or not you agree with the death penalty, Lisa’s execution is a sobering, sentinel moment. It will be remembered for arguments hinged around the fate of those who commit a serious crime whilst severely mentally unwell. Could better social services & healthcare during her formative years have prevented her crime? And could more or better forensic psychiatric assessment whilst on remand have prevented her being given a capital sentence?

Those who commit heinous crimes are often themselves victims of horrendous abuse and substandard care. It is for this reason that a gold standard forensic psychiatry system needs to exist alongside an effective criminal justice system. And so we must continue to advocate for certain detainees within the criminal justice system who, because of mental illness, are especially vulnerable.

This case has been highly emotive. Therefore we will be pausing to reflect before releasing further commentary in due course.

For media enquiries, please phone our Medical Director or email our European office.